Isn't the entire point of the profile and matching system to filter incompatible people out? Why can I match with 50 people and not a single one wants to get a coffee or something after exchanging a few pleasantries? Everybody hates these things and yet they refuse to do anything IRL to get off them. Is there some Manchurian candidate activation codeword that I'm missing? I feel like everyone treats this shit solely as an ego booster and actually gets pissed off that anyone tries to interact with them. How do you meet people in hellworld if you don't drink?
Me after dozens of dead-end back-and-forths that lead to nowhere despite having shared interests and presumably being attracted to each other since we matched: 
Hmm, maybe it's the extreme commodification of relationships and atomization under capitalism that prevents you from getting anywhere with this garbage 
Nope, must be because @SuperZutsuki@hexbear.net didn't say my favorite "The Office" quote and send me a playlist with 50 of the greatest songs I've never heard that made me instantly fall in love with them. I have no idea what other people expect from these things but I'm not doing labor for someone that I don't even know is real. Thanks for reading my rant, any advice is appreciated.
No, they deliberately get in the way of you matching with the most compatible people unless you pay for "premium" features that used to be core functionality
I'm just a few weeks into this hell and probably going to be done with it soon. I need to find some events to go to that aren't centered on drinking. Then I just have to wrangle with my crippling social anxiety.
If only we had places where people could commune with each other without paying money
Just going to walk around the library in a book costume asking people if they want to check me out
It's a miserable experience. After years of trying I only ever managed to meet up with one person I thought I had in-person chemistry with. At the end of the date she gave me her number unprompted. Then she unmatched me and I never saw or heard from her again
At the end of the date she gave me her number unprompted. Then she unmatched me and I never saw or heard from her again
I've had almost this exact scenario play out too haha
I'll be frank as a person that has been on dating websites before they were apps... people often go on them for small validation and then realize they have no time to meet others when they have to prep for work. It's gotten worse after covid lockdowns.
I'm on Grindr and Feeld mostly and Hinge sometimes. I'm mostly looking for casual sex buddies and not relationships.
I'm not gonna say the "it's not you it's me" line nor its inverse. Because the honest answer is: it's not us, it's capitalism.
I've had to cancel so many times on people because I sometimes get home too tired to move after work. And have had people cancel as well. Nobody admits that fatigue but it's understood.
And keep in mind I'm queer, bi, relatively attractive and literally looking to hand out blowjobs. Sometimes people are too tired to even get their dicks sucked
So don't think you're doing things completely wrong. The hellscape makes it hard to meet new people.
Sometimes people are too tired to even get their dicks sucked
the greatest indictment of our economic system
Dating apps don't want people to form relationships for the same reason pharmaceutical companies don't want to cure diseases. They just want a temporary, hopefully addictive, treatment for loneliness not a remedy
People use dating apps with the expectation it'll just find the perfect person of their dreams. In reality it matches strangers with no connection outside of vague attraction.
Relationships just aren't built that way they're done through shared experiences.
Anyway i quite literally ended up pseudo automating the dating apps at one point and if a meetup wasn't agreed within x messages I'd move on. Then I gave up and ended up dating someone i knew irl for like 8 years.
Most people i know with successful relationships weree matchmade by friend groups or met playing an mmo or some other common interest.
It's funny, the only time a dating app match actually whether anywhere for me was when I matched with someone I was already friends with from work. Didn't last too long but it was cool because I already had a foundation to work off of instead of having to awkwardly message a stranger.
Anyway I've realized I need more friends. I just struggle to meet new people. I do have a few friends but they've never really tried to set me up with anyone so I'm kind of stuck right now.
It's another avenue of meeting people, that's all. Or sometimes, your only avenue of meeting people. My work schedule is too chaotic to go to any social hangout place on a regular basis, not that there's any near me anyway.
Dating apps are good for femme comrades but not so good for male-presenting ones. The sex ratio is something like 9:1 so unless you're in the top 10%, most people won't consider you an option. Plus, since it's all online you can't use things like personality and charm to make up for the deficit of looks.
What this means practically for male-presenting folks is that you either wait until it naturally occurs in your daily life, a bad idea that relies on luck, or actively seek it out. The problem is that seeking out partners in real life you're inevitably going to make people uncomfortable, get denied, and fuck some things up. If you're socially awkward or ND, that means you will most likely end up as the topic of someone's "creepy guy" story.
My personal advice? Make friends, volunteer, get involved with activities and hope you find someone in your travels. But remember, the vast majority of dating follows a conservative view of humanity. Fair or not, equal or not, if you're male-presenting you are expected to initiate and prove your worth. Until that changes, a lot of conservative dating advice is still the most effective way to meet women. Obviously drop the dehumanizing bullshit and sexism though.
Tbh I think they're only good for femme peeps if you're A) mostly just looking for casual stuff (not to say serious relationships are impossible on the apps, just difficult to find) and B) are willing to sign a deal with the devil where you will absolutely be sexually harassed by a deluge of fucking weirdos. There's a reason for the gender skew on the apps and I suspect being bombarded by creeps and unsafe people is a huge reason women/femme presenting ppl aren't on these awful things anymore. Though idk I'm male presenting so I'm relying on speculation here. But I really do think it's bad for both sides, just in different ways (this is assuming hetero relationships ofc, things change a lot I'd imagine if you're looking for gay relationships on the apps).
EDIT: realize "deal with the devil" language could sound victim blame-y, to clarify it is 100 percent only the fault of the creepy dudes harassing women and not of the women who are using one of the only available options left to meet people reliably.
if you’re male-presenting you are expected to initiate and prove your worth
Only true if you match with someone who sees dating as a market and not a potential experience to get to know a human. During my time on the apps, I’ve never really initiated and have still found myself in relationships
This is true. In my experience, there are more people who see it as a market than a chance to get to know somebody. I think there is a lot of middle ground as well where people say "I might as well go on a date and see how it goes" but don't really put the effort in because they know there's a whole app of people waiting that could potentially offer a better match.
It's a kind of choice paralysis. I think the apps are designed that way. Obviously their goal is to keep people on the app and either paying subscriptions or viewing ads. They don't want you to leave.
No matter how interesting and attractive you find someone on there, there's always the chance that you can do "better".
Only true if you match with someone who sees dating as a market and not a potential experience to get to know a human.
It's certainly not a conscious decision, granted, but dating and social interactions in general are largely a market. Even if you're unaware of the unconscious calculations your brain makes, it doesn't mean they go away. You have to have an interest in someone before you want to get to know them. That interest is largely based off of unconscious social cues. In the same way you don't make the conscious decision to be angry, you don't make the conscious decision to have interest in someone.
During my time on the apps, I’ve never really initiated and have still found myself in relationships
This seems to run counter to the vast majority of the other male-presenting people on hexbear and in-general. You could be lucky, but I'd wager you're either more attractive or more adept at navigating social situations than the average person.
I was thinking about that the other day, how it would make more sense within the confines of a binary patriarchal system if women were expected asked men out. This makes sense considering that most men would take most women, while women seem more likely to have “a type” or be offended by advances. This would also decrease predatory behavior. Of course, it’s not like that, because the current way gives men the agency.
It's definitely worse. My spouse and I met via OKCupid in the before-time, before enshittification (and the Match dot com buyout) took hold. We've been together ever since because we're both fuckin' weirdos. Yes, the personality quiz shit was just stripped down Myers-Briggs with a coat of paint, but hey -- some of those scores were great as early warning signs and/or red flags (the not-fun kind). If nothing else, the random questions (and associated match scores) were at least somewhat predictive of whether one might get along with a prospective partner, or if they might have shared interests or views.
That initial version of the site right after the re-brand from The Spark (2004 to mid-2005) was decent overall, but then they started fucking with the matching algorithm by hiding or skewing results based on attractiveness and so forth. It went from a conversation starter to an incel factory.
You could actually look through the questions and saw what they answered to see if there were any deal breakers, or deal makers for that matter. You could even get some idea of sexual compatibility early on, even though that's not a first date conversation. It used to be a lot better.
Yes, the personality quiz shit was just stripped down Myers-Briggs with a coat of paint, but hey -- some of those scores were great as early warning signs and/or red flags (the not-fun kind). If nothing else, the random questions (and associated match scores) were at least somewhat predictive of whether one might get along with a prospective partner, or if they might have shared interests or views.
I think this was actually the best system. Is a better system even possible? Removing it means I have to wade through 100x as many dick pics and manually performed interrogations just to find the non-red-flag.
I don’t know. People complained about dating in the ‘50s and in the ‘80s I don’t really see how now is special. I don’t date at all for cultural reasons but I know for a fact people talked about how it used to be better for at least 70 years
Yeah, but those are constant threats during war. Using an online service is optional and you don’t have to chose to use one to date
I’m saying there is reason to complain about it as those aren’t optional right now.
Because it’s hard for me to believe that this one thing is worse when nearly every single other thing in society has improved since then
I've had pretty good success just trying to be as open and honest as possible. Like, I just put in my profile that I'm a communist, on disability, ND, like everything about me.
When we match, I info dump about something to them, them to me, then we go out .
The secret, for me, at least is to just date other queer ND people.
I just wish a) people would hit on me and I would know it (there is this person who I am attracted to who keeps complimenting my outfits but especially my dresses and yesterday did some incidental body contact over the duration of an activity we were doing as a group of friends, I am choosing to interpret this as me reading into things because it feels ambiguous and I'd prefer to have a friend than risk losing a friend for the possibility of some other sort of relationship) or b) that I'd be able to distinguish between internalized homophobia and transphobia telling me not to be predatory in situations where it is genuinely okay and/or welcome to express interest in people and when it genuinely wouldn't be appropriate to express interest in people.
I'm currently seriously dating someone right now but I miss seeing new folks, and I miss having sex with people that I care about but am not in a romantic relationship with.
For a long time I just wished that there was a medium for me to meet new people that I could sleep around with, but at this point I'm kinda accepting that at this stage of my life that isnt my problem, my problem is that I'm too burnt out to fix the internalized stuff, and because of the fluid nature of social expectations and my autistic ass just knowing the appropriate rules seems unreasonable outside of gay bars and dungeon parties, none of which take covid seriously.
Alternatively people could stop projecting predatory shit onto transfemmes and I could worry more about coming across as awkward and worry less about being beaten up or socially ostracized for being read as creepy. Or pigs could fly.
I wish there was flagging for "be overt as possible if you are flirting with me"
Society teaches us that randomly hitting on people is generally in poor taste and looked down upon. I’d expect that’s why it doesn’t happen as often
Its weird, because that paradigm seems to result in cis men and people with power over other people just finding fun new ways to do sexual harassment so it isnt even useful.
Throwing the baby out with the bathwater also makes people more miserable in the not-harassing way, because without that practice, people don't know how to respectfully make advances, and people also don't know how to respectfully but clearly turn down advances, and still have a healthy view of the person, which puts even more people on the apps.
I found my life partner on a dating app, and before that used dating apps to successfully hook up with people.
So take it from me, someone who had the best possible customer experience: they are designed to make you feel desperate and want to use their paid features. That is the only function they are designed to fulfill, every other aspect of them serves that function. If you are having no success with them, please, please don't despair: there is nothing wrong with you.
So, what do you do? Well...
Hmm, maybe it's the extreme commodification of relationships and atomization under capitalism that prevents you from getting anywhere with this garbage
Basically, yeah. We've fucked up our culture and become so socially atomized that we have way fewer third places and social mixer activities than we should have. Meeting new people IRL requires that we be in situations where we get to actually do some socializing with those new people. That's why big nerd conventions are such a classic place for new friendships and romantic relationships to start up, because it's one of the few true social mixers where we have that opportunity for relatively easy socializing with new people (and where we have some common ground to start a conversation about). But outside of that, we really do end up just sitting at home, or going to do hobby stuff with the same people we've known for years - not a conducive to meeting new romantic partners.
So the answer is kinda the usual "capitalism fucked up dating, and also it's fucking up the bandaid solution that is online dating"
Dates, I just want friends at this point. People to talk about deep issues and laugh together with. The app won't give me that either.
Hmm, maybe it's the extreme commodification of relationships and atomization under capitalism that prevents you from getting anywhere with this garbage
Yuuuuuup! Also: dating apps just like everything else under capitalism are not built to actually accomplish their stated function: they are there to extract surplus value. In this case: engagement and audience retention. If these apps were actually effective at helping people find meaningful lasting relationships they'd essentially be shrinking their user base.
What I'm hearing is we need a dating app that keeps your money in escrow or something until after you've successfully reached a pre-stated relationship goal (moved in / marriage / children etc).
More and harder commodification helps, right?
We need to abolish apps and normalize chatting up hotties at the Dollarama.
Good.
